Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 Black Widow II

This model was built as a fanfold test project two years ago, crashed a lot on test flights, and retired without flying more than short hops in my back yard.

It sat in the back of my workshop since then, and every time I saw it I had a nagging feeling that I should resurrect it. Recently I was reviewing my reference files for the real YF-23s, and was struck by how badly the two prototypes has deteriorated - a sad end for such beautiful jets.

So yesterday I went into action, and rebuilt my tired old test model. Out came the weak IPS-A drive, and in went a 17T LensRC motor. The model had been crashed, repaired, and cut up to get the gear out; I had to slice it open again to get the new gear in.

Gave it a quick paint job and some "flyby" graphics; now it was looking well used but presentable. Much better! It felt good to rebuild this one.

First flights today were a little disappointing. The model had plenty of power but control response was squirrelly - ailerons are needed, not just quirky V-tails. Luckily it shook off a couple more hard landings without complaint.

Kevin, I'm looking forward to seeing yours! If you're thinking of a pusher, I would recommend a shaft drive system for anything larger than a cd-rom motor. The YF-23 builds tailheavy and as you scale it up (mine is just under 21" ws) it will get worse.

I'm traveling on business for a week so the aileron modification will have to wait. This sucker is gonna fly well, one of these days!

I added ailerons this week and took it out for some test flying this morning.

First flight was slightly better than the previous attempts, but still not very controllable and noticeably tailheavy. Landed fast and broke a prop. There was a seagull circling around overhead making "HAW HAW HAW" sounds, I kid you not.

Put on a new prop, then put it back on the facing the right way, and added some weight to the nose. Also had to fix the bell on my cd-rom motor which had been knocked loose again.

Next flight was slightly nose heavy at launch and lasted about a minute. This model flies strangely - very twitchy in pitch and eventually settling into a 30 degree nose high attitude and spiraling around slowly. It's very stable like this, and will fly hands off for a long time. When I fed in some down elevator or aileron, it snapped out of the spiral viciously and I had my hands full recovering.